Two indisputable facts in America:
1 – As unions’ numbers and power have gone down so has the
average wage and future security of the American worker!
2 – With the decline of unions the wealth gap between worker
and owner has skyrocketed.
You see when workers are not allowed to band together
and form strong alliances they lose power over their employers and lose the ability to
earn more for their labors! So clearly the divide and conquer strategy is not just for traditional warfare.
Now this might be spun as fair since the owners of a company
are certainly entitled to make a profit and earn as much as they can from their
original investments and-or ideas.
But did they do it alone?
Did they do every job necessary in order to make the product
or perform the service they offer to their customers?
Did they keep all the records so that when it came time for
the customer to pay there was an outstanding invoice on record to be
reconciled?
Did they check the inventory and pull it from the shelves and ship it to fill orders?
Did they even open the doors and spend their entire minimum
9 to 5 day at the office making sure all functions of the company moved along
smoothly?
Of course they were concerned with all of the above but they
most certainly did not perform every aspect or function involved in running a
successful business! And if their employees decided, for whatever reason to walk off the job they might not have such a successful business after all.
After turning around the Disney Corporation Michael Eisner
famously refused to take credit for the achievement pointing instead to the savvy
leadership of each division. Of course
it was then pointed out that it was Mr. Eisner who placed those savvy people in
place and for that he must take credit.
He reluctantly did but the point was clear, the ones who did
the actual work did deserve much of the credit!
So why are the current owners and CEOs of many businesses treating
their employees like slaves?
Why are they spending much of their time and effort with
other wealthy businessmen and politicians in what appears to be a union to keep
the wealth gap between themselves and their employees growing?
Could the answer be simple greed?
Could the answer be anything BUT greed?
Greed and power go together like a horse and carriage.
That I tell you brother, you can’t seem to have one without
the other, at least not anymore in America.
The union busting that started in earnest under the watchful
eye of King Reagan (sorry Republicans, I know he wasn't just a king but a god)
has continued in earnest under such right wing puppets as Scott Walker,
governor of Wisconsin and favorite tool of the Koch family.
And it is no surprise or secret that the Koch brothers want
this college dropout to be the next President of the United States.
If he or any of their other ‘right wing’ conservative
Republican friends gains the White House the American Middle class may
disappear for good.
In case you do not know who the Koch boys are please Google the top 10 wealthiest people in the world and Brothers David and Charles are neck and neck with a
total of around $100 Billion!
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| WE WILL OWN YOU! |
One might rightfully
ask why such an incredibly wealthy duo is so hell bent on destroying others and
gaining even more wealth. There is
actually no other answer than a sick personal need for more greed and power.
Some simple fun facts about the pair and their wealth:
At 75 years old David, who is 5 years younger than Charles
could spend one million dollars a day, every day for the next 50 years and die
at the ripe old age of 125 with an estate still worth over $31 BILLION! That’s assuming he doesn't continue to gain
more wealth along the way of course!
And at that rate of spending neither he nor his brother
would have to worry about food stamps for the next 140 years!
So clearly they must continue to fight against the rest of
us gaining fair wages, good healthcare and a solvent Social Security system in the
somewhat shorter number of years we have left on Earth.
The fact that most Americans and sadly too many middle class
voters don’t know these two megalomaniacs is due to their intentional low profile
as they ruin the environment with their ‘clean coal’ products.
They have an admitted right wing agenda of getting rid of
Social Security, Medicare and anything that could help the masses live more
comfortably in their old age. In fact Libertarian
brother David ran for Vice President on that very platform in 1980.
The odd thing about this evil duo is that they spend
millions to stop others from getting an extra dollar in their paychecks. A vicious nonsensical tactic that takes money
away from consumers who would only use the extra cash to buy products made by
evil wealthy Mr. Potters such as the Koch brothers!
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| It's a wonderful life FOR ME! |
Let’s view another area where unions could help the average
man but are no longer able to and are under further attack in America.
Sandy victims getting reimbursed by insurance companies find
that the evaluations of loss purposely left out sales tax and as a result they
are in the hole for several thousands of dollars on repairs!
This was done since insurance companies can get away with
nearly anything as a result of no true oversight! No union is in the side of
the consumer and in order to hope to get back some of the money lost by their
fraudulent actions the customer and complainant must sue! This aids the
attorneys and the insurance company which drags its so-called feet for years or
until the homeowner gives up or dies.
And this is another reason the right wing Republicans fought
tooth and nail against a consumer protection agency and especially against its
advocate, now Senator Elizabeth Warren.
And speaking of the insurance industry does anyone other
than members of the current majority in Congress really believe this group of
greedy impersonal bean counters gives one thought about the well being of
humans?
In America you are required to have insurance to drive a car
but nobody tells the insurance companies how much they can charge you or if
they will pay you after an accident. (And of course it’s an accident, if it
wasn't you would call it an “on purpose!”)
But I digress.
It is a fact that workers in America have seen their wages
increase steadily over the last few decades.
But it’s also a fact that the increases have lagged so far behind the
increased cost of living that in real dollars they are being paid less than they
were in 1980 for more hours and higher productivity.
And that higher productivity means that the bosses/owners of
the companies for which they work their lives away are enjoying higher profits
and more wealth than at any time in this country’s history!
They are doing so at your expense!!
I know a particular company that will remain nameless for
now that had the audacity to lower one person’s year-end bonus from $100 to $75
claiming to have had a ‘bad year.’ But they did manage to reward their
children, who worked in the company AND THEIR WIVES who do not with matching
BMWs during that same bonus period paid out of company profits.
Now of course it is their money and they are not obligated
to pay any bonuses to the people who work and slave to make their businesses
profitable so the lady who was rewarded with the $75 should have been
grateful. In fact she was because the
cheap disgusting embarrassment caused her to come to her senses and quit. She found a better job working for better
people at a slightly increased salary shortly thereafter!
Sadly not enough workers have that option or they do not
believe they can better themselves elsewhere.
This is because the business landscape is made up of more stingy greedy
CEOs than ever before. And that is
simply because there are no unions with enough clout to stand up to them.
Witness Wisconsin.
Witness right wing run so-called Red States all passing
“Right to Work” bills.
On the face of it the name of the legislation sounds like a
good thing. After all if you want to get
a job what better place to do so than in a State that gives you the right to
work, right?
But just like so many other right wing named groups the name
belies the facts.
The right to work is meant to bust unions since it merely
says, “You do not have to pay union dues to work in a company that has a
union.” In other words the right wingers
are telling you to save your money and we will hire you.
But if enough workers avail themselves of
this seemingly easy way to save some cash the unions will die out and the
bosses will start lowering salaries and end benefits faster than you can say
serfdom!
Many people in America are against unions because they are
the groups that strike and cause the rest of us pain and hardship. They are also the group that gets increases
and as a result cause greedy companies to merely raise the price of their
product rather than lose a penny in profits.
This then causes our cost of living to rise and the right wing is quick
to point that out whenever there is a labor dispute.
“If the union wins we will have to charge more for our
product and you may not be able to afford it anymore.” (Of course we won’t be able to afford it, we
don’t make enough NOW to afford it!)
“We may also have to close up since we will lose our profits
and that will put many people out of work and n the streets!”
Management has been using fear tactics for so long if we
didn't hear words like that we would start to wonder if we were still in
America!
Unions are the reason we even have, or had a weekend!
Unions help create child labor laws.
Unions helped get women the vote.
Unions caused America to implement worker safety
regulations, which are constantly under attack by the right wing.
If more Americans would start using their heads and stop
listening to political rhetoric aimed at fooling them into voting against their
own best interest perhaps we could still save this great country and stop its
headlong free-fall into an oligarchy. They may not get it but the world already knows this to be true!
As unions fade into the sunset the only power left in the
hands of the majority of Americans is their vote. It has never been more urgent for all of us,
every American to exercise his or her constitutionally guaranteed right to
vote.
If we cannot stop this trend then the next union to
disappear could very well be the Union formerly known as the United States of America!
